Can in-work benefits improve employment among lone parents?

Welfare reforms have sought to increase employment among lone parents, but entering work does not always reduce poverty. Sustained employment has a greater change of reducing poverty than opting in and out of work on a short term basis. But what is the best policy approach to encourage sustained employment?

This project will investigage the impact of two recent welfare-to-work policies (In-Work Credit and the Employment Retention and Advancement Demonstration) on short and medium term employment outcomes. The researchers will identify which in-work benefits – and which specific features of them – are the most likely to foster job retention among lone parents.

The project will be carried out with the DWP and using administrative data on benefit and employment spells in a cutting-edge empirical model of employment transitions. The findings will be presented in a technical working paper, placing the results in the context of the existing literature.